But going through the list I couldn’t help compiling some statistics:

No. of books not finished: 11

No. of bookrings and -rays through Bookcrossing: 16

No. of books I got from the library (I had to guess on that one, since I don’t write that down):  25

No. of books in german:  21 (most of those were non-fiction books and came from the library)

No. of non-fiction books: 34

No. of collections of short stories: 2

No. of audiobooks: 2 (both of whom I didn’t finish)

No. of graphic novels: 2

No. of YA and children’s books:  5

I find those numbers quite interesting and in come cases surprising. For one, I could have sworn I listened to more audiobooks last year, so either I forgot to list some of them or I am imagining things and hearing voices that aren’t there. Both possibilities are equal, I guess.

I also thought I would have read more YA lit and short stories. Since I am pretty sure that I never forgot to log an actual physical book that passed through my hands, I will have to accept that those numbers don’t lie.

As I said, picking favorites is not easy, even if I leave out re-reads and non-fiction books (an honorable mention has to go to “Catcher in the rye”, which I rediscovered by accident after loathing it with a passion – after re-reading it I now love it equally as passionately).

I went on a serious Preston & Child reading binge, thanks to my rediscovered love for Agent Pendergast. But the kinds of thrillers those two write are like fast food: fun to read, but not very filling. Same goes for Michael Chrichton, whom I gave a chance for the first time last year. His books are entertaining, but nothing that stays with me for long.

As always it is easier for me to pick the bad examples, the books that either bored me to tears or annoyed me or just generally seemed pointless. I call this one my Twilight-category.

Biggest disappointments 2009:

Mary Roach – Bonk

After loving “Stiff” so much I had high expectations for this one. Alas, although it is mildly funny, it didn’t really hold my interest and I ended up skimming the second half of the book just to get it over with. Maybe it was just the subject matter: I find rotting corpses endlessly more fascinating than human mating and sexual rituals, make of that what you want. *shrug*

JG Ballard – The Drought  + The Drowned World

I gave this guy 2 chances to impress me, but both times he failed miserably. Seldom have I read more boring books set in post-apocalyptic settings. Post-apo is normally my favorite genre, but Ballard’s other books got kicked off my wishlist after I tried to slug my way through those 2 meandering stories.

Julian Barnes – England, England + Love, etc.

I don’t remember why I ever put Julian Barnes’ books on my wishlist anyway (it must have been a recommendation from someone), but the two I tried to read bored me silly. That man has such an awful writing style that it turned reading his books into work. Definitely not an author I will ever give another chance.

Stephen King – Duma Key (audio)

The first Stephen King novel I absolutely could not finish. I found my attention wandering every five minutes and had to rewind to the start of the chapter a couple of times, because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what had happened.  I gave up 5 or so chapters in. Maybe audiobooks just aren’t my thing, but I doubt that this one is any better on paper.

Anita Diamant – The Last Days of Dogtown

Another instance of too high expectations. Loved “The Red Tent”, but this one, while not really bad, just left me cold.

Christopher Moore – Practical Demonkeeping

This is the second and in all probability the last book of this author I read. I can’t count the numbers of times I have read high praise for him and how hysterically funny he is supposed to be. I read “Fluke” the year before and now this one and I just don’t get it. Give me Carl Hiaasen and Christopher Brookmyre any day, but Moore is off my reading list.

Stieg Larsson – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This one was easily the disappointment of the year for me, although I should have known better than to trust the hype. Again, not exactly a really bad book per sé, but I didn’t like it much at all and I completely fail to see what is supposed to make it such a hit. It went on for far longer than it had to, the female main character is fucking annoying, and half the story is about things that are completely irrelevant to the main plot (maybe they get relevant in the sequels, but I am not going to read them to find out).

Alice Walker – Now is the time to open your heart

I have no idea what this book was supposed to be about. I threw it aside after 50 pages or so.

Marina Lewycka – Two Caravans

Another one I just couldn’t bring myself to finish. Her first book was so great that I kept trying to enjoy this one, but it just didn’t work. The scenes with the chickens did it for me and that was it.

Margaret Forster – Keeping the World Away

Nothing much to say about this one. It was easily readable, but meandered along a bit pointlessly and was easily forgettable.

Iris Murdoch – The Message to the Planet

My first and last Iris Murdoch. No idea what this one is about either. It was so dense and hard to read that I ended up pondering single words or sentences and immediately forgot the plot – if, indeed, it has any.  Gave up after a couple tries, because I just couldn’t bring myself to pick it up again.

Top Ten of most enjoyable books 2009:

Christopher Brookmyre – One fine day in the middle of the night

He is a new discovery for me and I think I will have a lot of fun with his other books as well if this one is any indication.

Richard Russo – Straight Man

Ruso just never disappoints. I have read almost all of his books now and they are firmly in the “can be re-read anytime”-stack on my shelves.

Alan Moore – Watchmen

Who would have thought that I could enjoy graphic novels so much? Certainly not me. Usually the story arcs in graphic novels (or, as I still call them: comics) are too short for my taste and it hardly seems worth it to start reading them. But this one seemed to go on forever and had an actual, intricate story to tell. Once I was finished I’d have loved to start over again right away. Unfortunately I had to send it on its way, but I will get myself an own copy.

Michel Faber – Under The Skin

This one was quite a surprise. I picked it up in a secondhand shop in London, because the blurb sounded vaguely interesting. The story turned out to be something completely different from what I expected, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Eminem – The Way I Am

What can I say? I just love the guy. Not only his music, but him as a person. It was great to read his story in his own words and see all those rather private photos and his scribbled song lyrics. This is the only big format hardcover book I bought at full price in the last couple of years – and I don’t regret a Cent of it.

Allen Steele – Coyote

Judging from the reading list I did slide back into science fiction quite a bit last year. This is one of the books responsible for that. I had never heard of the guy before, but couldn’t put the book down after I started it. The 2 sequels are already waiting on my TBR shelf.

Larry Niven et. al. – Falling Angels

Another sci fi story. An enjoyable romp through science fiction fandom. Good story and frequent chuckles. Love it.

Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash

The first book of this author I read, but certainly not the last one. Mindbending ideas about the future of the internet, great characters and a plot that doesn’t let up. Awesome.

Joanne Harris – Runemarks

Tis is one of the YA books I read last year. Totally different from Joanne Harris’ other books, but just as enjoyable. Sometimes, when reading such books, I am a little bit sad not to have a daughter I could share them with.

Octavia E. Butler – Kindred

It is a tragedy that Ms. Butler died already. She was such a talented storyteller. This is the third of her books I have read and I enjoyed them all immensely. I am spacing out the other ones, because I still want to have something to look forward to from her.

All in all 2009 was not a bad reading year. 2010 is shaping up to be even better, I think. I am already on book #27 (Garth Nix – Sabriel) and even though many of them were gardening books, there were also some really good novels as well.

And while it was a great feeling to accomplish this two times in a row (after all, there are many people who take part for years before making it over the finish line even once), it was mixed in with a little disappointment as well.

Yes, I did write another 50.000 words during November (58.678 to be exact) and that is great. But I didn’t quite make my own goal of 60.000 and neither did I finish even one of my two stories.

But, to look on the bright side, I did move along in my original story quite a bit farther and I think I will be able to get it finished eventually. Hopefully before November 2010.

I try to keep writing at least 500 words a day since NaNo ended, but since the real world has caught up with me again this proves to be even more of a challenge than banging out 2000 words a day in November.

I am also itching to start revising and editing the story, but before I haven’t finished the damn first draft that would be a complete waste of time. But that just gives me more motivation to keep writing. Although by the time I finally get around to revising I probably won’t feel like actually going through all those endless pages again. But I’ll cross this bridge when I come to it.

More than 2 weeks of writing lie behind me and even though I am quite comfortably ahead of the official wordcount goal for this time of month, I still feel a bit disappointed with myself because I had hoped to do so much better this year.

Unfortunately I didn’t keep my statistics from last year, but I do remember that there were several days where I didn’t write anything at all and serveral days, especially towards the end of the month, where I scrambled like mad to catch up. I made it to 54.000 in the end, if I remember correctly, but it wasn’t exactly fair sailing all the way and I knew it could have been a lot more if I hadn’t procrastinated and dragged my feet quite as much. But since I had started 4 days late I was still happy to have made it over the finish line at all.

Now this year, because I already knew it would be possible for me to write 50.000 words in a month, and because I wanted to do better than last time, I set my goal at 75.000 words – and even more important, I wanted to finish last year’s novel.  Because it is all nice and well writing so much stuff, but I know if I don’t finally finish this thing now, I probably never will. Not that that would be such a loss to the world of literature, since it is never going to be published anyway. But for my own sense of fullfillment (and because I am prone to start all kinds of things, but have a hard time sticking to one thing long enough to actually finish it) I just need to do this. I don’t care if I never get around to edit it and let other people look at it, but I want to be able to say that at least once in my life I wrote an actual novel from start to finish.

The good news is, I was actually able to pick up the story where I left it off a year ago. That wasn’t something I was quite sure I could do. So I am happy that at least it isn’t already dead in my mind. And I am making headway with the plot. I know what is left to write and I roughly know where I want to go with this, instead of just letting it meander more or less randomly. And I do feel that the end draws closer. Not quite close enough to see it from where I stand now, but maybe just around one or two more corners.

The bad news is that I have written only 17.000 more words for this story so far. The rest of my wordcount comes from the other story. The one that I started on a whim on day 3 of the contest, because for the life of me I didn’t feel like working on the original one that day.

So now I am working on 2 stories at the same time. Every night when I start up my laptop I have to decide which one to work on this time, which in a way feels like a bit of a luxury, but it also stresses me out that every time I choose “the other story” is a day less to finish the original one.

Also, one would think that if I write 2 stories, I shouldn’t have a hard time racking up a much higher wordcount than last year. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work this way. I might still make it to 75.000 words, but it will be a close thing.

And do you want to know the punchline? It’s not because I wouldn’t have time to write. I have oodles of time. Well, actually I should be working most of the time, but I’m not (which is a tale for another day). For the last 2 weeks my parents were on holiday and I had the whole house to myself, nobody nagging me or reminding me to do “something useful”, nobody I had to even talk to at all (except for the dog and she is not much of a talker). Fourteen days of uninterrupted writing time all to myself. In theory, at least.

And even now that they are back they don’t really bother me all day, because they assume I am up here in my office working. In theory I could have written another 1000 words since breakfast easily. But I didn’t. And that’s not only because I am plain lazy and love to distract myself with all kinds of useless other stuff – although both of these things are true. But the biggest reason for that is that I can’t seem to write in the day. For some reason I always, always only start writing in the evening and then keep going until I have trouble to keep my eyes open and string a coherent sentence together. Quite an annoying habit, really.

But there are still 2 more weeks to go and hope springs eternal and all that shit. I do still think that I have a fair shot at finishing both my stories in time and maybe even reach my unofficial personal wordcount goal. And even though, as you can see from the graphic to the right, I already skipped one day this month, I do hope that I will also achieve my other goal of writing each and every day for the remainder of the month. We’ll see how that goes.

(FYI, if I was allowed to count this post towards my wordcount, that would be a whopping 964 words more already…)

Last year I was a couple days late, because I stumbled on the site only on November, 3rd or so. This year I am in it even before the official start, spending way too much time in the forums.

As per the rules one is allowed to outline a story, but the actual writing of it has to start only on November, 1st. I did that last year (sans the outline, obviously) and it worked fine. So, common sense says I should just do the same thing this year.

But since when do I listen to common sense?

Thing is, even though I managed to write more than 50.000 words last November and so technically “won”, I failed to finish the story. Moreover, all this year I still failed to finish the story, because I just had other things on my mind and never got around to much writing at all.

So it looks like I will be a NaNo-rebel this year. I just have to finish this damn story, before I have any hope of being able to concentrate on another one. From what I have heard from other WriMo’s this strategy can backfire completely and end in miserable failure, but I take that risk. If it isn’t working at all I can always switch to a new story after a week or so.

For now I am excited and can’t wait to get started.

I finally sat down today to fix that annoying IE 6 bug that screwed up my header design, shifting around my voodoo guy and making my blog title and tagline show up way too far down and interfere with the first post. In case you don’t use IE 6 (I bloody well hope you don’t) this is what it looked like:

I had avoided thinking about it, because I was afraid it would be some complicated thing to fix and I really have better things to do than make that awful, outdated browser do what it is supposed to.

But no. Turns out my worry was unnecessary for once.

All I had to do was change my little voodoo guy from being the background image of a div to a normal picture within the same div – which I had wanted to do anyway, so I would be able to link the picture back to the homepage. Imagine my surprise when that fixed the positioning problem of the title and tagline as well.

My only problem now is that I don’t understand why.

There are no floats involved and the title and tagline are positioned absolutely. Besides, the presence or absence or position of a background image shouldn’t have any influence on the position of other objects inside that div. At least, that’s what any sane person would expect, right?

So how the hell does this bloody IE 6 manage to screw it up in the first place? And why is it fixed if I change the way the voodoo picture is included?

I’m sure there is a logical explanation for this. I just can’t see it and that drives me bonkers.

As I mentioned in my last post I have dropped 6 kg (12 pounds) in the last 2 months.

For somebody who is already reasonably slim this would be a huge weight loss. For somebody like me, who isn’t, it turns out to be just a hardly visible drop in a very big ocean.

Not that I am morbidly obese or anything. Nothing of that sort. I wear a US-size 18, which as far as I know is still quite a way from the upper end of the scale for really fat people.

Nevertheless it is hard to find really nice clothes in my size. Or, if I do find them, they just don’t look good in my size. Or they are much more expensive than in smaller sizes. No wonder clothes-shopping is one of the things I hate the most.

But since I am not really interested in fashion anyway the clothes aren’t the issue. Being overweight, apart from being a health-risk, is just a complete hassle in every aspect of life. I know fat people often say they feel good just the way they are and it’s the thin ones that have a problem. But that’s just a big, fat lie. It is something we try to convince ourselves of so that we don’t feel too bad. Being fat is just not fun – and nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

So, I do want to lose weight. Quite a lot of it (about 60 pounds in all). Preferably without having to deprive myself of too much in the way of food etc. So dieting is out, obviously. Since it has been proven that most diets don’t work long-term, that’s just as well.

As I wrote in my last post I decided to use running as my weight loss tool (no, that’s unfortunately not me in the picture – I wish it was). And so far it seems to be working. 12 pounds in 2 months is more than I had hoped for, actually. If it goes on at this rate I will reach my goal weight in a couple of months, even though I gave myself 2 years to do it. After all, it took me 25 years to gain all this weight so I can’t reasonably expect to lose it all in a short time.

In the last weeks I have also started to read up on healthy eating. I know I have a lot of work to do on that front, but I wanted to make the running a habit before I started in on the whole food topic. Besides, I just like eating too much to think about cutting out some stuff altogether. I guess in the end it will all come down to gradual changes at some point.

But you know what surprised me when I found out I had lost 12 pounds? That I didn’t feel it at all.

I had put the scales away about 2 weeks after I started running again, because I felt it just depressed me when I checked my weight every day and didn’t see more than the usual random fluctuations.

Not until I returned from my week in London did it occur to me to check even once again. Of course I had in the intervening weeks noticed that some of my pants had started to sit rather loosely and for one I actually need a belt now. But it’s not like I can’t wear any of them anymore, because they are too big now.

So imagine my surprise when I step on the scales one morning and see that a whole 12 pounds have magically vanished. I must have looked on that number for 5 minutes or so, because it just didn’t make sense.

6 kg are the equivalent of 6 one litre milk cartons. Stack them on a table and contemplate the picture. And then lift up the whole stack. Pretty heavy, don’t you think?

And all that weight was until very recently distributed over my body somewhere. And now it’s not anymore. Shouldn’t I feel some kind of difference? Shouldn’t my legs look thinner, or my belly smaller? Or my boobs, for that matter? Everybody had promised me that would be the first place were weight loss was noticable. Yeah, right. Empty promises.

But really, I am a little bit disappointed in not being able to discern any noticable difference at all in my figure so far. I guess I will just have to be patient until I lost the next 15 pounds or so. Or until my pants really start to fall down if I don’t use a belt (hopefully not in public).

After all, all runners are slim, right? And common sense says they can’t all have started out that way. And even though, for somebody as overweight as I am, it is recommended to start not running, but walking, because it is easier on the joints, I always found walking rather boring. Besides, having tried it a couple of years ago with a friend, it didn’t help me to lose any weight at all. So, after reading some books about running technique and getting some expensive shoes, I decided I would just give this whole running thing a try for a while.

The first try

I first started in March, when the weather was still filthy and cold most of the time. Only then I did it all wrong – not wrong per sé, because I had read those books and had found some good training plans for beginners to follow. But all wrong for me personally, because as it turns out I hate following training plans. I hate wearing a watch that unflinchingly told me that I had been running for only 45 seconds before I was totally out of breath and had to walk for 2 minutes. I hated writing all the times down later and seeing no discernible progress from one week to the next.

Another thing I did wrong was running in the afternoon, and having to drive to the field where I ran. During the day there are just too many things that can come up to interfere with my running time, or I was already too tired or unmotivated to get off my butt and get in the car when the time came around, so I put the run off to tomorrow. Until after 2 months I gave it up completely. Feeling like a failure again and once more convinced that I will never be able to change.

The second try

When I started again in July I decided to forget all the stuff everybody else said and just do it my way. Nowadays I run first thing in the morning. In summer I got up at 6 a.m., put on my running shoes, took the dog and off we went. Meanwhile, because the sun comes up later I can sleep in until 6:30. I guess in winter I will go back to getting up at 6 and get some reading done until it is time to go out.

I also don’t drive up to the fields anymore, instead just walk down to the river where I go for walks with the dog every day anyway. Along the river to the next village there’s a nice route of about 1km (one way). The ground is very uneven, so first thing I did was spraining my ankle, but I got used to it meanwhile and it beats running on asphalt.

Another thing I don’t bother with anymore is taking a watch along. I just don’t care anymore how long it takes me to run that puny 1km and back. I don’t wanna know how fast (or slow) I run, or how many calories I burn, what my heart rate is or whatever else those fancy things tell you nowadays. If I can’t breathe anymore I am running too fast – I can ascertain that much without any technological doo-dad.

Does that work?

Yes, for me it does. Not bothering with plans and stuff means that I can just run as fast or as slow as I feel like at any given day. Sometimes I walk a bit more than I run, but that’s alright, too. I don’t stress myself anymore about reaching some goal that somebody else set in a training plan.

All I do is get up every morning, get out there and run. Oh yeah, and have fun with it. I do actually look forward to my morning run nowadays. It is not something I have to kick myself in the ass to do. It’s not something that seems like work, made complicated by rules and plans and boring stuff. It’s just me and my dog and the sunrise and the mist over the river valley.

But, I hear the “experts” say, that way you have no way to track your progress. You don’t know how long it took you in the beginning to run the route, and you don’t know if you got faster. You don’t know if you are training within the fat-burning zone, or if your heart rate is too high. And if you have no way to track progess your training is just not as efficient as it could be.

And that might well be true. But I don’t give a damn, because my way, as inefficient as it may be, is the only way that works for me. It’s the only way don’t get bored or annoyed. And it’s the only way I actually enjoy doing the same damn thing every single morning, again and again. So, the way I see it, a little inefficiency is a small price to pay for that. I never wanted to break any records or compete in any contest or run a marathon.

Besides: I may not train as efficient as I could, but I still lost 6 kg in the last 2 months (for the americans: that’s roughly 12 pounds). Without, I’d like to add, changing my eating habits in any way! I still eat chocolate, I still drink my coffee with milk and sometimes sugar, I still eat not nearly enough fruit. And still I lost 6 kg in only 9 weeks (2 of which I couldn’t run, because I was first in London and then down with a cold).

So I really can’t complain about inefficient training. However wrong I might be doing it, it still works for me. And, what’s just as important, it still allows me to enjoy my life and indulge in all kinds of treats.

Beat that with your stringent training plans.

As you probably deduced from reading my last post I returned home from London last Thursday. Unfortunately the only souvenir I brought with me was a nasty cold. The result was that I spent the next 4 days mostly lounging around on the couch, oozing various fluids, coughing parts of my lungs up and just generally feeling like crap.

Not the best fun I had in a while. But it’s getting better and I am able to actually concentrate on something again (even though I still feel too lousy to actually work). Today I even went on my morning run again for the first time in 2 weeks. And considering that I had to stop frequently to let a coughing fit pass or blow my nose it wasn’t too bad.

Still, the London trip was fantastic. A week is exactly the right amount of time for me to spend in a big city: enough time to get re-acquainted with old favorite places and find some new ones, but not long enough to get all fed up with the noise and the hustle and the millions of people everywhere.

Oh, and it gave me enough time to go book-shopping. Unfortunately I had a 10kg weight-restriction for my luggage (one of the downsides of ultracheap airlines), so I couldn’t go quite all out with the book buying. But I managed to cram 25 books into my backpack anyway. And since they were all either from used book stores or Oxfam, they cost me about 30 Pounds altogether. And even though, as usual, I bought many books I had never heard of before, just because I liked the title or cover or something else caught my eye, I also found quite a few books from my wishlist (a Neil Gaiman, 2 Richard Russo, a Kate Atkinson, Douglas Adams, JG Ballard etc.). So in that respect the trip was very successful and enjoyable.

Besides that I went to a somewhat unusual Bookcrossing meetup with several british Bookcrossers. Unusual because one of us went up onto the fourth plinth on Trafalgar Square to educate the masses about the concept of Bookcrossing and to give out more than 160 books by just throwing them down from there. The rest of us went around the square and gave out more books to everyone who seemed interested. The plinth thing is part of some kind of art project that’s going on this summer, called One & Other. (You can watch our BCers one hour stint here.) It certainly was a new exerience for me, but I had a lot of fun. And it was great to meet some BCers face to face. And the subsequent visit to the nearest pub wasn’t too bad either.

Apart from that highlight I found 3 other great things which will surely become part of my favorites:

Abney Park Cemetery

It took me ages to find the place, because I was too stubborn to ask for directions and I just can’t seem to get the hang of the bus system in London. But it definitely was worth the long search. A beautiful old, derelict cemetery with an abandoned and crumbling church right in the middle. I only regretted to have gone there in the brightest afternoon sunshine. A nightly visit would have been more appropriate. Maybe next time.

But I took about a hundred photos anyway. I’ll see if I can post a couple of them later on.

Hunterian Museum

This one is inside the Royal College of Surgeons and it proved a bit hard to find as well, since when I first went looking for it on Monday (when it is closed) I couldn’t for the life of me find any sign with the name on it. When I stubbornly went back on Tuesday it was open and they had put out a sign so people would actually know which building it is in.

The collection itself is splendid: thousands of pickled body parts with all kinds of deformities, dead babies  and foetuses in all stages of development, skulls and bones and pretty much just any kind of anatomical object you can think of. All very impressive and educational, and what can I say: I just love to look at dead things.

Although I have to admit, the one thing that I would have loved to take with me was this sculpture of a panther eating a rabbit in the art gallery part of the museum:

(Sorry for the bad quality of the photo. Since taking pictures inside the museum is forbidden I just grabbed this one from the interactive panorama thingy on the website.)

I have no idea why I was to taken with the thing, but I know if I ever see an affordable replica of it somewhere I will buy it.

Wellcome Collection – “Exquisite Bodies” exhibition

This one was a random find. I had never heard of the collection itself and I only saw the posters for the exhibition in the Tube stations. Of course when I read “an exhibition of anatomical models” I knew I had to go have a look.

The exhibition was pretty interesting. Of course I had seen anatomical models before: mostly made from wax, or the newer ones from plastics, they are those kinds of things where you can simulate an autopsy by removing the abdominal wall and single organs. But it was interesting to see how the art of making those models developed and I was surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of the things show female cadavers, pregnant ones mostly. Either the female anatomy and the marvel of pregnancy is very much more complex and needs more explanations for educational purposes, or the men who made these models were all just obsessed with naked female bodies.

The rest of the collection is equally entertaining. Herny Wellcome was a collector of a very special sort. He collected pretty much everything even marginally connected with health and the human body. You can probably imagine that he ended up with a pretty eclectic pile of stuff. Definitely a place to come back to on later visits.

* * *

Apart from those new finds of course I also had to pay a visit tothe big 3 of my old favorites: the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the British Museum. All of them never cease to delight me in their various ways.

So, I had a pretty interesting week. But as much as I love London, being back home, sleeping in my own bed, having some peace and quiet and all that is really nice, too.